You Can Bank on Bank Closures By Paul Walker
One of the things I particularly dislike is going into my bank, the ANZ Bank, to draw out cash for the week, as I am bloody-minded enough to resist card transactions as much as possible. Service has always been, well, slow and painful, with the major city bank I go to always having but one teller. Now I know why, maybe. It has been revealed by whistle-blowers that “several former ANZ staff have backed claims made by a whistleblower that the bank is deliberately pushing customers out of branches and using their absence to justify branch closures.”
The aim, no doubt, is to reduce costs, but perhaps also to fit in with the drive for Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC), I conjecture. It is certainly consistent with it.
“Several former ANZ staff have backed claims made by a whistleblower that the bank is deliberately pushing customers out of branches and using their absence to justify branch closures.
In an article published by news.com.au earlier this week, ex-staffer Phillip* said that during the time he worked at an ANZ branch in a metropolitan area, staff were directed not to serve customers and instead instruct them to do their banking at the onsite ATM.
He claimed the strategy behind this was to make branches look like they are serving less customers.
An ANZ spokesperson previously denied Phillip’s allegations: “This account does not reflect how our branches or our people are encouraged to operate,” the spokesperson said.
But other former ANZ employees have been in touch with news.com.au to support Phillip’s version of events.
“I can confirm Phillip’s frustrations at directives from retail banking leadership,” one former branch manager said.
He confirmed that “digital (ATM) transactions vs. staff assisted (teller) transactions” were used by the bank as a “performance metric”.
“Branches would often close the telling services in quieter times under the guise of system outages to force customers to use ATMs,” the former branch manager added.
“Staff were told to use these opportunities to educate customers on the use of self service options.”
He added that lower in-branch transactions werer also used to justify not adequately staffing branches that were to remain open.
“Branches that aren’t going to be closed are also not being invested with staff as the branch traffic numbers are reduced.”
The former branch manager added that the introduction of ANZ Plus, a digital-only banking platform launched in mid-2022 had created customer confusion and exacerbated customer frustrations with in-branch services.
At the time, ANZ CEO Shayne Elliott said that ANZ Plus was the bank’s response to challenges from technology-based competitors without costly legacy systems, such as branch networks, and it is viewed as ANZ’s future retail bank.
The former branch manager said that when ANZ Plus was launched “branches were instructed we could not assist with customer sign ups, information etc”.
“This changed shortly after where staff were instructed to use the ANZ Plus platform for all new signups … unless the customer had zero ability to use online platforms.”
He added that ANZ Plus account openings vs. traditional account openings were another performance metric by which ANZ branch staff were judged.
“Branch staff are unable to access any [ANZ Plus] details including account numbers, balances etc, only an online team can assist with enquiries.”
“Customers are unable to perform any transactions at the counter including withdrawals from an ANZ Plus account.”
“This is also inflating the digital numbers as customers have zero choice of branch interactions.”
Another ex-ANZ employee, who worked on ANZ Plus, told news.com.au he “can confirm there is a real and specific drive to get the bank out of cash and close branches to reduce costs”.
“There was a strategic initiative – My Cash Experience – that aimed at changing cash handling to a supply chain, and having customers pay for the service,” he said.
“The execution pathway communicated through the program aimed to change branches from a teller service to a concierge service – like a Telstra shop – and push customers to interact with the bank online or … outside the branch.”
Another former employee, who was a manager involved in transforming the branch network, told news.com.au that ANZ was “very heavily pushing to move customers away from using the tellers and instead using digital and ATM self-service”.
He added that in-branch greeters were “heavily incentivised to redirect customers to the ATMs and the iPads”.
Comments